If you have been faffing around about losing weight then you need to read these five tips from Steve Siebold, author of Die Fat or Get Tough: 101 Differences in Thinking Between Fat People and Fit People and Fat Loser! Mental Toughness Training for Dieters. Steve Siebold knows all about how to win and what it takes to reach a goal. He is a former professional athlete, national coach, and international businessman. Steve Siebold began studying ‘Mental Toughness Training’ as a world-class junior tennis player in the 1970s.

Here are Steve’s Five Ways to Guarantee Success on Your Diet:

Know Your Why

There’s an old saying in the world of peak performance: “Without knowing why you’re doing something, the how doesn’t matter.” This applies especially when you’re tackling big goals, such as becoming fit. My personal why when I was losing weight was to take back my life, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. How about you? You need to know the reason you’re engaging in this weight-loss venture and then you’ll fight more soundly when it gets rough. Once your why is answered, the how will follow.

Write about Your Body Vision

Just as you would write a business plan to ensure success in your career, you need to write a business plan for your body. It doesn’t need to be 50 pages long, but it does need to include the details of the image you want to create. It might include describing the way you want your six-pack abs or legs to look as you shape and sculpt them through exercise, or how big you want your arms to be. Make sure you describe the way you will feel when you reach your goal. This will keep you motivated when the going gets tough.

Embrace The Discipline

Something is fundamentally motivating about being on the path to success. The fulfillment the warrior feels when she is fighting the war is unique and unlike any other form of pleasure. It’s a deep psychological satisfaction that accompanies fighting the good fight. Being successful on your diet is no different. Don’t just endure the discipline; embrace it. Stare it down. Look it straight in the eye. When you feel those late-night hunger pangs and cravings, experience them fully. Think about the way it feels in your stomach and your mind. That’s the feeling of victory telling you if you can do this, you can do anything. Instead of fearing the pain or avoiding it, embrace it and the discipline required to continue. You’ll start looking in the mirror and seeing the person you really are and were always meant to be.

Accept Reality

The power of psychological delusion in the weight-loss process is formidable. Looking in the mirror and seeing the image you want to see instead of your real self creates a disassociation between fantasy and reality. It’s easy to avoid reality because it can be harsh and even cruel, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s real. It all boils down to the way you want to spend your life. Do you want to live in the real world or fantasyland? Stop pretending you aren’t overweight and that being fat doesn’t matter. Decide to wake up and see the world as it is and yourself as you actually are, instead of mentally medicating yourself with childish fantasy.

Pay The Price

We all know everything in life has a price, and losing weight is no exception. It’s your body and your battle to fight. No one can do it for you. For some, success comes quickly. Others will endure a long, drawn-out battle. Whichever experience you encounter, you’ll have to pay the price. Think of it this way: You’re already paying the price for being overweight, and if you stay that way you’ll be paying for the rest of your life. Pay the price one time to become successful and reap the rewards permanently.

The choice is yours: continue just dabbling around with your diet or really embark on your weight loss journey and conquer it once and for all. Start taking responsibility for your habits, actions, and behaviors and see how good it feels to finally win this fight.

Do you have a dream? Steve Siebold, a former professional athlete and mental toughness coach to professional athletes, believes you can benefit from the habits and attitudes of Olympic athletes. The author of, 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of The World Class, Siebold says, “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. Olympians have a ‘Whatever it takes’ attitude. They’ve made the decision to pay any price and bear any burden in the name of victory.”

Here are Siebold’s winning tips:

Olympic athletes embrace conflict for growth. When most people run into an obstacle, they seek escape. Olympic athletes have a plan to push forward when this happens and learn all they can from the challenge. They know facing adversity is part of being successful.

Olympic athletes are held accountable on so many levels. One of the biggest problems is that most people have no means of accountability or a support system in place when it comes to what they’re trying to accomplish.

Olympic athletes are learning machines. They spend hours practicing, studying their competitors, watching videos of their performances and session after session with their coaches and mentors. If the average person adopted just a fraction of their work ethic, the results they could achieve would be endless.

Olympic champions know very good is bad. For the average person, to be classified as very good is something to be proud of. For the great ones, it’s an insult.

Olympic athletes make “Do or die” commitments. When most people are burned out from the

battle, Olympians are just getting warmed up. It’s not that they don’t fatigue; but their commitment to their dream of winning the gold keeps them going.

Olympic athletes are consistently great. The reason they are so consistent is because their actions are congruent with their thought processes. They have a very clear mental picture of what they want, why they want it, and how to move closer to their target objective.

Olympians are coachable. Most people will only accept the amount of coaching their egos will allow. Champions like Olympic athletes are well known for being the most open to world-class coaching. The bigger the champion, the more open-minded they are.

Olympians compartmentalize their emotions. In other words, they have the ability to put aside anything else going on at that very moment, and focus only on the task in front of them.

Olympians think big. Ask most people what they’re thinking at any given time, and you might

be surprised to learn how many think about just getting by. That’s called selling yourself short. Olympians are fearless and focused on manifesting their ultimate dream of bringing home the gold.